Over the last year, I’ve heard the phrase “back to normal” everywhere I turned.
My question is: Why?
For a long time, I’ve heard from people that life was too mundane and boring. “Normal” is not exciting. It’s not inspiring.
The past year has undoubtedly caused heartbreak and sadness. But it also gave us a chance to start over. People changed their work environments, their jobs, their relationships. We were given a chance to better understand what matters to us and how to achieve it.
But still, all we thought about was getting back to normal, back to normal, which is not enough.
Therefore, let’s just look at the word normal. I think there’s a reason it starts with the word no. Because we’re not meant to be normal. We want the opposite of normal.
The Antidote
We want a Wow, Hmm, Yes experiences for ourselves, our clients, and our relationships.
Let me tell you a little story: I grew up in Paraguay. Picture 45 celsius on a hot summer day. We were barefoot almost all of the time, and our feet would burn and get blisters. Exploring nature kept me and my brother entertained all day.
But the evenings were magical. A soft breeze would cool down the air and the ground. My favorite moments were sitting with my parents around the bonfire. When I was about 5, my mother would show me how to write words with my finger in the dirt. That led to my very first “Wow, Hmm, Yes” moment. I looked up to her and said, “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be a teacher.”
I wanted to create for other people the experience that my mother had just given to me.
There is a concept in here that I have lived by most of my life and with the help of Dr. Mark Goulston, it now has a name: Wow, Hmm, Yes is a change catalyst. It’s what brings about any change in our lives.
Here is how it works:
Wow is what you do or how you make someone feel that stands out so much, it can’t be ignored. It gets through to people in their cluttered and distracted minds.
Hmm occurs when people start seeing themselves in that story / experience and think, This could work for me, I gotta have it.
Yes is when they begin taking action and taking back control.
By creating Wow, Hmm, Yes during my virtual presentations, it attracted companies to bring me into their events to create wow, hmm, yes for their clients and their teams.
I’d love to hear your own wow, hmm, yes experiences.
What is a wow, hmm, yes moment you have experienced during this past year? How have you replaced “normal” and defined your new reality?